singing from the psalms

All of you are invited to Berean this Saturday at 8:15. I'll be singing three songs as part of a songs-inspired-by-the-Psalms night in the coffeehouse.

It'll have been a while since I sang a solo with an audience. The lady who wrote the songs, Connie, and I played two songs a couple months ago for video cameras, for a different art project. She has written so much... When she was first asking me to help her select a Psalms song, she had an entire box crammed with folders and drafts and inspirations. She has two bookshelves filled with even more music. She 'hears' music in her head; for her it's not difficult to take a few snatches of Scripture, set it to music plus whatever else God gives her, and make a song.

Today we finalized the songs to be sung, and I finally feel like I'm getting comfortable with her. I felt like another woman friend, not just the young kid from the now-expired songwriters' group, which is a weird feeling.

I have this thing with perfection.... so I'm a bit nervous. But the coffeehouse atmosphere isn't an intimidating one, and so much of the time I think that songs are about the singer, and not the song. Or in this case, the One who inspired the scriptural psalms. Some of Connie's lyrics are so strong and trusting in the Lord that I feel that I haven't experienced all of it... that I'm still so broken and doubting. But I can feel the truth of the words when I sing, even when I haven't experienced exactly what the line is saying about God. Doubt is all too common. But I have been blessed, and I want to give that back - in a song, in a thought, in anything my hands can make.